Full Body Check
by Saiph Nebula
Summary: Quick fic I wrote for a friend. Snake/Meryl post MGS1. Snake's a sneaky boy!


Sweat was gliding down the side of my face as I blocked, parried and attacked. Snake expression was the same impassive concentration he'd worn for the past hour or so. I couldn't tell if he was focused, or just bored; so I quickly deflected a blow aimed for my mid-section and reacted with a sharp jab of my own, making contact with the side of his face in an effort to perk his attentions.

He stumbled for a moment before regaining his balance and coming back with a succession of punches. There was no time to gloat or take pride in the fact that my attack had landed. I'd learnt in our first session together that Snake took his training seriously. Any childishness went ignored or punished harshly.

I still have the bruises to prove it.

"Aren't we done yet?" I gasped five minutes later. Hand-to-hand combat was the first thing I'd learned, in fact I'd taken self defence classes when I was just thirteen in an effort to impress my father. But almost two hours of taking on Solid Snake himself wore a girl down!

Snake laughed curtly, "You're out of shape. But sure, if that's all you've got in you."

I rolled my eyes as I slowly dropped my fists. He liked to throw in the occasional surprise attack just to make sure I was concentrating. It was fine when we were practising like this, but when I was busy making breakfast and hot porridge ended up all over the ceiling... not so much.

He dropped out of his stance and began circling the room, one hand coming up to rub at his neck. I saw the red mark I must have left when I'd landed a round-house kick on his shoulder-blade, and I'll admit it made me smile in satisfaction. Snake might be harsh, but he got the job done. He'd taught me more about practical hand-to-hand then any of the official training I'd had – mostly because he'd given me a few hints on how to fight dirty.

As I watched he began pulling the furniture we'd pushed to the sides of the room back into place. Once he'd brought the couch back to the centre of the room he paused to remove his sweat-laden shirt and dumped it over the back of the seat.

"Ew!" I reprimanded him, striding over to pick up the offending piece of cloth between thumb and finger, "That's gross, go dump it in the wash basket and not on the furnishings. It'll smell like Snake-arm-pitts in here!"

He turned with a smirk to look at me over his shoulder as he bent forward to pull the coffee table back into place. "You don't usually care when I get hot and sweaty."

I rolled my eyes, dropping the shirt onto the floor. I wasn't going to run around cleaning up after him, it set a bad precedent. With a cluck of his tongue he turned back to drag the table across the carpet, leaving me with a view of his backside edging closer in his loose track-suit bottoms. I stilled for a moment, my eyes running up the back of his legs to his muscled back. There were a few bruises, but mostly just marks from carpet burn when I'd managed to trip him onto the ground. Goodness knows what the neighbours thought we were doing!

He stood straight a few seconds later, and I was captivated by the way those muscles re-arranged themselves with each movement. Snake was built with an athletic physique. Not too muscular, and with a slim waist that I was suddenly dying to wrap myself around-

"What you looking at?"

I blinked. I hadn't even noticed him turn to look at me as I'd begun daydreaming...

"N...nothing..." I stammered, knowing my cheeks would give away my lie as they flushed red. Snake's lips twitched knowingly for a moment. Then he stepped towards me. Once he was right in front of me I could see how each bead of sweat caused by our workout ran between his muscles and made his skin glisten.

"Something bothering you, Meryl?"

I glared.

It turned out that my psychotherapy to destroy my sexual drive had relied heavily upon regular hormonal suppressants I'd received back at my old base. Lately, without them, I'd suffered some rather... unusual withdrawals. I could already hear the blood rushing in my ears as his eyes watched my expression so knowingly.

"Nothing _bothering _me," I lied.

Snake shrugged, "All right then. Think I'll have a shower. You okay putting everything else back?"

He got two steps pass me before my arm shot out to block his path. A growl escaped my gritted teeth as I gave into my frustration, "You _know _what's going here," I hissed, hating the fact that I had so little control over her body until it learnt to deal with my... cravings.

Snake waved my arm away casually, "So deal with it yourself. I'll give you some privacy."

Cheeky bastard!

"Ooh no!" I exclaimed, grabbing hold of his wrist and turning him to face me. He complied with my tugs of course, there was no way my tiny self could force him into anything he didn't want...

Unless... could I?

Snake's smirk slowly disappeared from his face as my own expression altered from annoyed to... devious. I sighed heavily, as if suddenly carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and then rolled them uneasily.

"Meryl?" he asked as I began rubbing them gently.

"I think I might have pulled a muscle..."

There was a short pause before his hand came down to trace the patterns my own hands were making against my skin. Then:

"I'd better move the furniture back myself then."

Argh!

Was he being deliberately _dense_?!

Fine. Perhaps a taste of his own medicine would do the trick.

As I heard him dragging a few of the chairs into place I quickly pulled my arm out of my shirt, exposing just a little more breast then was necessary as I did so. Making sure to look as genuinely concerned as I could, I began thoroughly inspecting my 'hurt' appendage.

I heard the clank of something being dropped as I winced loudly, prodding the area most reddened by our fight. "I think it might be bruised pretty badly..." I murmured.

I heard an unhappy grumble come towards me as Snake finally bought my story. The Oscar goes to... me!

Now for the after party...

"Let me see," Snake demanded, not as gently as he could have done, but _oh well_.

"Ow, don't pinch it!" I snapped. I had to keep up the premise didn't I!?

"I didn't even hit you that hard!" Snake protested, "You did hit the ground with a bang though. It might be fractured, take off your shirt so I can check properly."

I think my jaw may have visibly dropped at his words. Okay, so he'd seen me naked before. A lot. From many different angles... but if he was so unaffected by my near-nakedness when I ended up slobbering all over his glistening muscles... how weak was I?

I dropped my arm, frowning, and suddenly less in need of his... help... then I had been three minutes ago. "Never mind," I muttered, "I'm sure it's nothing. Go shower."

"No," Snake said more firmly, "Let me see, I want to make sure I didn't hurt you."

And with that he took hold of the edges of my shirt and began to lift! I squawked loudly, jumping away from his grabby hands in surprise. "_Rude_!"

"Oh come on, I've seen them before," he shrugged.

"Oh shut up," I almost snarled, "There's nothing wrong with my arm."

"I know."

…

Huh?

Snake scratched lazily at his messed up hair and grinned, "You think you could fool me that easily? I knew what you were doing."

"Then why pretend not to!" I fumed, embarrassed, turning to storm away with as much dignity as I had left before he caught me gently around the waist and pulled me back to him. I stood in his arms, rigid.

"I... thought it'd be fun," he confessed.

"Fun? You've a warped sense of humour..."

My insult died off as I felt lips softly kiss their way over my still exposed shoulder. The hands on my waist wandered dangerously over my abdomen.

"You started the game," he reminded me, breaking his trail up my neck to breathe against my ear.

My breath caught in my throat as his hands stroked over my pelvis. Thinking suddenly became a little more difficult...

"Still," he mused, nuzzling the crook of my collarbone, "I did go pretty rough on you just now. I think you're in need of a full body-check."

Well, I wasn't going to argue that...

* * *

Disclaimer: All rights to Konami.

Just something I threw out in forty minutes for a friend.


End file.
